Vacuum Instabilities with a Wrong-Sign Higgs-Gluon-Gluon Amplitude

The recently discovered 125 GeV boson appears very similar to a Standard Model Higgs, but with data favoring an enhanced h to gamma gamma rate. A number of groups have found that fits would allow (or, less so after the latest updates, prefer) that the h-t-tbar coupling have the opposite sign. This can be given meaning in the context of an electroweak chiral Lagrangian, but it might also be interpreted to mean that a new colored and charged particle runs in loops and produces the opposite-sign hGG amplitude to that generated by integrating out the top, as well as a contribution reinforcing the W-loop contribution to hFF. In order to not suppress the rate of h to WW and h to ZZ, which appear to be approximately Standard Model-like, one would need the loop to "overshoot," not only canceling the top contribution but producing an opposite-sign hGG vertex of about the same magnitude as that in the SM. We argue that most such explanations have severe problems with fine-tuning and, more importantly, vacuum stability. In particular, the case of stop loops producing an opposite-sign hGG vertex of the same size as the Standard Model one is ruled out by a combination of vacuum decay bounds and LEP constraints. We also show that scenarios with a sign flip from loops of color octet charged scalars or new fermionic states are highly constrained.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures; v2: references adde

Determining Supersymmetric Parameters With Dark Matter Experiments

In this article, we explore the ability of direct and indirect dark matter experiments to not only detect neutralino dark matter, but to constrain and measure the parameters of supersymmetry. In particular, we explore the relationship between the phenomenological quantities relevant to dark matter experiments, such as the neutralino annihilation and elastic scattering cross sections, and the underlying characteristics of the supersymmetric model, such as the values of mu (and the composition of the lightest neutralino), m_A and tan beta. We explore a broad range of supersymmetric models and then focus on a smaller set of benchmark models. We find that by combining astrophysical observations with collider measurements, mu can often be constrained far more tightly than it can be from LHC data alone. In models in the A-funnel region of parameter space, we find that dark matter experiments can potentially determine m_A to roughly +/-100 GeV, even when heavy neutral MSSM Higgs bosons (A, H_1) cannot be observed at the LHC. The information provided by astrophysical experiments is often highly complementary to the information most easily ascertained at colliders.Comment: 46 pages, 76 figure

Robust LHC Higgs search in weak boson fusion

We demonstrate that an LHC Higgs search in weak boson fusion production with subsequent decay to weak boson pairs is robust against extensions of the Standard Model or MSSM involving a large number of Higgs doublets. We also show that the transverse mass distribution provides unambiguous discrimination of a continuum Higgs signal from the Standard Model. (orig.)Available from TIB Hannover: RA 2999(03-102) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman

From the LHC to Future Colliders

Discoveries at the LHC will soon set the physics agenda for future colliders. This report of a CERN Theory Institute includes the summaries of Working Groups that reviewed the physics goals and prospects of LHC running with 10 to 300/fb of integrated luminosity, of the proposed sLHC luminosity upgrade, of the ILC, of CLIC, of the LHeC and of a muon collider. The four Working Groups considered possible scenarios for the first 10/fb of data at the LHC in which (i) a state with properties that are compatible with a Higgs boson is discovered, (ii) no such state is discovered either because the Higgs properties are such that it is difficult to detect or because no Higgs boson exists, (iii) a missing-energy signal beyond the Standard Model is discovered as in some supersymmetric models, and (iv) some other exotic signature of new physics is discovered. In the contexts of these scenarios, the Working Groups reviewed the capabilities of the future colliders to study in more detail whatever new physics may be discovered by the LHC. Their reports provide the particle physics community with some tools for reviewing the scientific priorities for future colliders after the LHC produces its first harvest of new physics from multi-TeV collisions.Comment: 98 pages, CERN Theory Institute Summary Repor